Terms of use

Effective 13 November 2026

These terms are between you and Origae, a sole trader based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, trading as Talking Road Trip ("we", "us"). By using the app or this website you agree to them. If you don't agree, please don't use them. Please read them with our privacy policy and copyright page, which form part of these terms. The app is licensed to you, not sold.

Your rights under Australian law come first

Our services come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law. Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or changes those guarantees, or any other right you have that the law says cannot be excluded. If anything in these terms seems to say otherwise, the law wins.

For a major failure with the service, you are entitled to cancel your service contract with us and to a refund for the unused portion, or to compensation for its reduced value. You are also entitled to compensation for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage. If the failure is not a major failure, you are entitled to have it fixed in a reasonable time and, if that is not done, to cancel your contract and get a refund for the unused portion.

What Talking Road Trip is

Talking Road Trip tells short stories about Australian towns and places. As you drive, it shows a card before each town, and plays a story only when you press Play. Stories are for interest and entertainment. They are written with the help of AI from public sources, which each story lists, and many are narrated by an AI voice. We check them, but they can still contain mistakes. They are not historical, legal, safety or travel advice. If you spot a mistake, tap "Report an error" on the story.

Safety on the road

• The driver must follow the road rules at all times, including the rules on touching a phone while driving. Set up the app before you set off, or let a passenger use it.
• Don't rely on the app to navigate, to know where you are, or to warn you about anything. Distances and times are estimates.
• Weather and fire warnings in the app are a convenience only. They come from public feeds that can be late, incomplete or unavailable, and we only read warning feeds for NSW, Victoria and Queensland. In an emergency, follow your state's official emergency service and local authorities.
• Stop only where it is safe and legal to stop. Places named in stories may be on private land or closed to the public.

Location and notifications

The app uses your location on your phone, only while it is open, to know which town is coming up. You can use it without location and browse instead. Our privacy policy explains exactly what is and isn't sent.

Free stories and purchases

• Every story card is free to read. You can listen to 2 stories free. After that, you need to buy to keep listening. The free stories are a gift, not part of what you pay for: we may change or stop offering them for the future, and that never affects anything you have bought.
• A road trip is a one-off purchase. It unlocks the stories with audio on that road, and its offline pack, for as long as we offer Talking Road Trip. It doesn't renew. Some stops on a road may not have audio yet, and we say so before you buy.
• All access is a subscription, monthly or yearly. It unlocks every road while it is active. It renews automatically at the end of each period until you cancel. Cancel any time in your app store's subscription settings (on Android, in Google Play under Payments and subscriptions). Cancelling stops the next renewal, and you keep access until the end of the period you've paid for.
• Prices are shown in the app by your app store before you pay, and include GST where it applies. We may change prices for new purchases. Your app store will tell you before a change affects your subscription.
• Payments are taken by Google Play or Apple, under their terms. We never see your card details.
• There are no accounts. Your purchases belong to your app store account. Use Restore purchases to bring them to a new phone. Each purchase works on up to 3 phones. If you need more, or think this is wrong, email us.

Refunds

Refunds for purchases are handled by the app store you bought from, under its refund policy. For Google Play, see Google Play's refund help. If something you paid for has a major problem, you are entitled to a refund or replacement under the Australian Consumer Law, whatever the store's policy says. Email us and we will help. A refunded purchase stops unlocking stories.

Changes to the stories and the app

We add, correct and sometimes remove stories, and we improve the app. If we make a change that takes away something important you've paid for, or stop offering Talking Road Trip, we will tell you in the app or on this site where we reasonably can, and your rights under the Australian Consumer Law still apply. If we stop offering Talking Road Trip altogether, we will stop all access subscriptions renewing and make sure the unused part of a period you've paid for is refunded, through your app store or, if that isn't possible, by us. Offline packs you've already downloaded keep working on your phone.

We don't promise the app or our servers will always be available. Stories, maps, weather and warnings need a signal and services we don't control, so they can be slow or fail.

Using our content fairly

We give you a personal, non-transferable right to use the app and its stories for your own trips. Please don't copy, record, republish, sell or share our stories, recordings or data. Don't scrape or bulk download the app, this website or its files, get round the free story limit or the paywall, or use any of it to train or test an AI model. Don't forge, replay or share purchase records or story links, use our servers other than through the app, or send them automated requests at a volume the app plainly isn't meant for. Don't interfere with the app or our servers, or try to reverse engineer them, except where the law allows it. Our copyright page has the detail, including the open licences some content comes under.

If you break these rules, we may stop your access to paid content or the service. We won't do that without a good reason, and your rights under the law still apply.

If you report an error, you let us use what you wrote to check and correct the story.

Other services

The app uses services run by others: Google Play or Apple for payments, OpenFreeMap for maps, MET Norway for weather, state emergency agencies for warnings, and Vercel for hosting. We aren't responsible for their content or availability, and their own terms may apply to your use of them.

Our responsibility to you

We take care to make Talking Road Trip accurate and reliable, but we can't promise it will always be available or error free, or that every story is complete and correct. To the extent the law allows, we are not responsible for:

• loss or harm that comes from using the app in a way that breaks the road rules or these terms;
• relying on the app's warnings, distances or stories instead of official sources;
• indirect or consequential loss, such as lost time, missed bookings or lost profits.

This section doesn't limit the consumer guarantees, or our responsibility for anything the law says we can't limit.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms, for example when the app changes or the law requires it. We will change the date at the top and, for important changes, tell you in the app or on this site. If you keep using the app after a change takes effect, the new terms apply. If you don't agree, you can stop using the app and cancel any subscription. A change never takes away a road trip you bought before it took effect.

General

Severability. If any part of these terms is found to be unenforceable or unfair, that part is removed and the rest still applies.

No waiver. If we don't enforce something straight away, we haven't given up the right to enforce it later.

Transfer. You can't transfer your rights under these terms. We may transfer ours if the business is sold, and we will say so in the app if that happens.

Entire agreement. These terms, with the privacy policy and copyright page, are the whole agreement between us about Talking Road Trip.

The law that applies, and disputes

These terms are governed by the law of Victoria, Australia. You can bring a dispute in the courts of Victoria or the federal courts of Australia, or in the courts or tribunals of your own Australian state or territory where the law allows.

If you have a problem, please email us first and we will try to sort it out within a reasonable time. Nothing in these terms stops you complaining to Consumer Affairs Victoria, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, or the consumer body where you live.

Contact

Origae, trading as Talking Road Trip
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
nick.patterson@origae.dev

Questions, problems or complaints: we aim to reply within 5 business days.